Boasting one million users strong, AutoGravity is poised to take the car-buying industry by storm and become the "Amazon" of car shopping.

If there was ever a sign that the “good old days” of car shopping are over, this is it: AutoGravity recently hit one million users.

Auto who?

AutoGravity, for those who may not know, is a southern California startup that’s been in business since 2016. In that time its growth has been exponential: One million users, 2,000 dealers, and a healthy selection of captive and indirect lenders.

In fact the company has some significant backers. Earlier this year, Volkswagen Credit purchased a $30 million stake, joining Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz. AutoGravity has also partnered with the top five dealer groups.

It comes together within a mobile experience designed to take car buyers from research to offer in just minutes. Indeed, if you haven’t heard of AutoGravity and you’re in the market for a car, you probably should know, given the app’s popularity.

Here’s how it works: Shoppers download the app, where they browse cars and select up to four vehicles from actual dealer inventory then request loan or lease offers. The buyer then goes to the dealership, finalizes the transaction, and drives off the lot. Dealers and lenders pay a fee for each transaction, so the experience is free to consumers. According to Serge Vartanov, chief marketing officer of AutoGravity, the value of that type of service is that it makes buying a car more convenient, and eliminates what he says is “ambiguity” in financing by linking monthly payments to actual cars.

Back to the dealership showroom

The southern California startup helps car buyers browse for cars, request loan or lease offers, then go to the dealership to finalize the deal.

(AutoGravity)

But AutoGravity doesn’t go the distance, and isn’t financially transparent in terms of the final deal. The buyer still must visit the dealership to wrap things up, and that means tasks like negotiating a final price with the sales person must still be done face-to-face. In addition, offered loans include added finance costs like a dealer reserve fee, which the dealer gets for arranging financing between buyer and lender. In addition, shoppers will not escape the aftermarket sales pitch (think: paint protection).

So while the makes the first phase of the buying experience more convenient, it doesn’t solve the most pressing consumer pain points: negotiating the deal, finishing vehicle financing, and evaluating F&I add-on products. Those elements are still a part of the showroom experience – no Amazon-like e-commerce experience here.

Focus on the mobile experience

While the AutoGravity app improves upon the painstaking process of car-buying, it doesn't completely eliminate the headache inducing hurdles of negotiating at the final stretch with a dealership salesman.

(AutoGravity)

Right now for AutoGravity, however, the focus is on the mobile experience, and in making the experience inclusive, convenient and intuitive. Ultimately the app, along with a growing crowd of competing solutions, offers a mobile spin on a broken retail experience because consumers clamor for it.

According to the J.D. Power and Associates’ 2017 New Autoshopper Study, 56 percent of automotive internet shoppers conduct research on a mobile device; the average internet shopper spends 13 hours conducting automotive research online, of which more than four hours is spent on mobile devices.

“Our momentum speaks to an underlying demand for change in the automotive industry,” said Vartanov. “AutoGravity serves a rising population of digitally-savvy car shoppers looking for a digital alternative to finding and financing their next car.”

Vartanov considers the company’s sudden ascension that to be, in part, evidence of a “groundbreaking evolution” in home entertainment and online shopping (think: gaming and Amazon) that has finally made its way to automotive retail.

“It has become clear that the next generation of digitally-savvy car buyers is ready for a change in the way and speed in which they buy their cars,” said Vartanov. AutoGravity, it seems, is a part of that ongoing evolution, one that works within the dealership experience.